Pillars That Uphold Us, Article by Imam Ali Mateen

With Allah Allah’s name. The Beneficent, the Merciful. We thank him. We Praise him. We seek his help and aid from our shortcomings and weakness. We ask Allah to send his blessings on his honorable messengers who have been deputized throughout time. Musa, or Moses, the liberator. Isa (Jesus), the spiritual reviver, Allah’s word and spirit in the flesh. And Muhammad, the mercy to all worlds and nations which encompasses all liberation spirituality and Allah’s intervention on this plane of existence and on the existence that we all await.

Allah has informed the human being with all it needs to know to have a blissful and honorable life, in the Qur’an. We are shown through our beloved Prophet (pbu) how to have a blissful life. Life has in it its own toil and struggle as Allah says. We have created man in toil and struggle.” Qur’an 90:4. We are also told that evil has manifested on land and sea because of that which man’s hands have earned. Here we have in our creation, struggle and opposition and in life we have toil, struggle, and opposition by men’s hands.

We see the beast of materialism manifested all throughout our global community. We see genocide of cultures and communities throughout the world all done for the profit of a few. We see poverty made by men. We see destruction of morals and ethics done by media, TV, and other information outlets. All for the benefit for a few.

Allah responds by saying, “Mischief has appeared on land and sea because of the unearned wage that the hands of men have earned. That Allah may give them a taste of some of their deeds, in order that they may turn back (from evil). Qur’an 30:41

The human being is a very complex creature. He is both instinctive and inspired. He is both emotional and rational and all that is in between. Allah tells us that the development of the human is a large process. The human being transforms several times from his conception to his birth. After his birth, he will transform again several times until he reaches his full maturity of 40 years old. This is part of man’s toil and struggle going through his development. Man must learn to be social, to interact with like people and unlike people. He must learn to be socialable enough to find a life partner or a mate, to multiply himself and further his contributions to society. Man must know himself; he must know what is beneficial and harmful to himself.

Allah says he has raised the skies or heavens with pillars that you can’t see. That sky that you stare at with wonder at with it beautiful colors, there’s something hidden from your vision holding it in its place.

That reality is Allah has lifted the skies or heavens with his words. And that is the true reality of how everything that is firmly established is upheld by Allah’s words. The Qur’an, the word of Allah, makes firm and lifts the believer who has recited the words of faith and allegiance the Kalima Shahadation. If we don’t seek to be upheld internally by Allah’s word, we will find a false, weak pillar to uphold us which will collapse at the worst of times. I earnestly petition us to let the Qur’an be our foundation of truth and reality.